Branches over Blades
by neon flights
Summary: What Eren's dreaming mind adds to this memory might just have been what Mikasa had seen that day all along.


I read a little further into what some will probably consider an insignificant part of episode 22 compared to the rest of it, and trying to write my impressions in words to share with people was sort of tough until I just made a drabbley thing out of it.

Not so much a 'headcanon' as it is a (what I like to think is interesting) scene interpretation. And look, ma, it doesn't even spoil anything!

* * *

The streets rumble back into life as the people already begin to gather towards the gate. The Recon Corps has returned from their run at last.

She watches him be watchful for the return of his heroes from the high perch he has found, mouth wide in a smile that she personally thinks is a little too eager for something he won't see. Most likely he expects them to return with news of victory at minimal loss - maybe no loss at all.

Something like that just wouldn't be allowed. It's too hopeful. Hope is a currency long out of circulation in their world. Why should things be any different now to appease the mind of a young admirer in a glut of criticism?

They can see nothing yet, but people from further up call down to pass messages of what to anticipate. All about the state of the soldiers and all the things they all expect from it:

Blood and bandages. Their numbers are much fewer. Those that made it back look deader on their feet than anything else that could even touch life. Their efforts were in vain once again. No one is surprised.

He doesn't seem to listen to any of it, and simply cranes his neck higher.

When they come into view at last, it all fits. She wonders. If he were to see this sorry sight countless times over, would it do anything at all to dissuade him from joining this 'cause'? It's a chilling thought for her to imagine him in their place. For him to be among them when they leave would be worse enough. To discover his absence when they return would be deadening.

Someone close by voices another complaint about what use these endeavours were to mankind and this causes him to leap from his place to the ground where he likely intended to accost whoever had spoken out. Calling out to him is worth an attempt, but ultimately useless. Eren's standing ahead of her, visibly furious even with his face turned away from her, notable in his clenched fists and the stick lodged in one of them that he probably intends to swing and then other things characteristic of him that aren't worth noting.

What's worth the attention is that she can't see the meagre amount of firewood he had gathered between his shoulders anymore, or the red neck of his shirt, either. For a second, she feels a draught lift the end of her scarf into the air, and then something changes.

A break in the crowd in front shows more dispirited soldiers as they continue to slug through the street, comrades at each others' shoulders and wrapped within their carts. The deep red meanders among the green, but when it comes to Eren, he stands untouched. His cloak is as clean as it would be on departure (leaving this world - the walls – or literally, _leaving this world?_), the rippling wings of freedom more of a taunt to her than the hundreds of dead and maimed that made this image_ not okay_ could ever amount to. It's as if he had been wearing it seamlessly all this time - since she woke him up earlier from underneath the tree and the grass had come with him, weaving into near fluid shapelessness - as it drifts in the breeze and darkens at the folds into her own personal torment. He looks no less dishevelled by this supposed extra burden of clothing that has come out of nowhere (though only to those without sense if they watch him now); his head remains bowed and he continues to submit himself to his unsettlement through the imprint of wood he presses into his palm (her head offers this comfort, at least - she can picture all but the blade he would grasp in his hand), close by the straps that wind around his leg and the rim of a knee-high boot.

There's something about these visuals that strikes her harder than anything else has in a long time in that single moment.

The world freezes here, the image now static as it burns into her eyes. Undoubtedly it would leave negative imprints wherever she set her eyes next. Perhaps this is her brain's way of dealing this one unavoidable truth to her. Like others she has realised, it is absolute; as much so as the throb of blood in her veins, the sidelong beauty and cruelty of this world she inhabits and the tension of survival itself. It simply stays with her for too long; soldiers robbed of their spirit above all else, displayed before a young boy who felt no wrong wearing the uniform they share (and it horrifies her to see that even in her mind's eye it fits him so _well_) and not being at all dissuaded by what he sees. He can only feel for them all, and sympathises too much to even consider being one with the wave of impartiality around him.

She is standing, life almost timeless, and then it is something she can't stand anymore.

A jolt of _something _leaps through dozens of synapses. She calls his name again, stepping forward with a hand outstretched and reaches for the hood, expects fingers to clasp green cloth with all the spirit of the wind in its threads to throw it off him – and let it_ re-join_ the wind _alone_; there are things she could lose Eren to that would hurt no matter what _but it would not be that_—

She couldn't let him. He had to be grounded, or he'd soar even further from her reach than he already had.

There's a dull thud, and a shout of alarm that belongs to someone else. She seizes him. The green is gone, the wood is back, and at his back it almost tumbles out at the sides of his carrier like his cry of surprise when she drags him backwards, with red clamped beneath her fingers. His sliding against the dust and pebbles is lost among the footsteps ahead; those which bore a weight denser than what these smaller, now bootless feet were ever meant to have dreamt of. The stick he has now dropped is a much safer, more likeable amount.

This is more of a shock than anything. They're back on the ground, and the wings are gone, because they were never truly there to begin with. It had been something her eyes and imagination had placed of their own accord, for a reason that wasn't becoming any easier to accept. It oozes through all over him, from his tightened limbs to his over-bright eyes.

_He_ was gone, too. He always was.


End file.
